Saturday, March 30, 2013

1)FOIA.
FOIA requests are made daily and denials have been challenged in court, some
cases lasting over a decade (ie. Morley v. CIA),
and this option is continuing on many fronts. (Lesar, Zaid, Holland,
et al), but it only leads to more records and not justice for JFK.

2)Congressional
Oversight Hearings could call attention to the lack of enforcement of the JFK
Act, identify the records that have been intentionally destroyed since the law
was passed, require the testimony of those who destroyed the records and
investigate the failure of various agencies to abide by the JFK Act. Although
this is the easiest road to take, Congress is reluctant to do anything let
alone oversee the JFK Act.

3)Congressional
Briefing. If Congress won’t hold an official public hearing, a Congressional
Briefing could be organized and presented in a Congressional setting that could
influence interested Congressman, their aides and the media and drum up support
for #1 – a real Congressional Oversight Hearing on the JFK Act.

4)DallasCounty Grand Jury. Under Dallas
D.A. Craig Watkins, the Innocence Project has reviewed the cases of those
convicted for crimes and utilizing DNA and
other modern techniques, freed many wrongfully convicted persons. It may
be possible to show that there are sufficient questions concerning the
circumstances of the murder of Dallas policeman J.D. Tippitt, some that exonerate Oswald. There are also a number of
new witnesses that could call for a local grand jury be convened to review the evidence and
take the new testimony to determine if there is enough to bring any
living suspect to trail.

5)Although
it was not a federal crime to kill the president in 1963, it was a federal
crime to conspire to kill a federal employee, and if conspiracy can be
established a special federal grand jury could be convened to review the
evidence. It is also possible to convene a special federal grand jury in WashingtonD.C. to consider the crimes related to the
assassination, including perjury, destruction of evidence and records,
obstruction of justice and conspiracy.

6)Federal
Task Force. In order to handle complex cases that cross state and national
bounds, a Federal Task Force is formed that includes representatives from each
of the major federal investigatory agencies. Such a Task Force could coordinate
the investigation of related unsolved homicides such as President Kennedy, John
Rosselli, Sam Giancana, et al. The US
government however, refuses to properly investigate the civil rights murders of
the 60s so it is unlikely they will want to solve any political assassination.

7)Civil
RICO – The RICO statutes were established to prosecute complex conspiracies
like mob and mafia controlled gambling rings, prostitution and drug trafficking
and organized crime murders. While the Department of Justice will not make the
assassination of JFK a RICO prosecution, it could be done in civil court,
similar to the Christic Institute’s RICO case against the Iran-Contra network. While
there are lawyers with RICO experience interested in pursing this tact, the
Christic Institute’s failure in court has stymied any further attempts to use
it.

8) Civil Libel Case. The Association of Former Intelligence Officers (AFIO) founded by David Atlee Phillips unsuccessfully sued Liberty Lobby (defended by Mark Lane), Washingtonian Magazine (Fonzi) and UK Anthony Summers. Another libel case is possile if someone can be baited into suing someone.

9) Civil
Case of personal injury. DealeyPlaza
bystander James Tague was hit in the face by a piece of concrete from a curb
hit by a bullet or a bullet fragment shot by the same person who killed President
Kennedy and wounded Governor Connally. Tague’s wound drew blood, which would
have earned him a purple heart in combat, and it makes him a victim of the same
person who killed the President. He could bring a civil suit, but most such
personal injury civil suits are based on loss of money or work. Tague could
possibly argue that he represents those who feel that the loss of democratic
process is just as significant an injury as loss of revenue.

10)Inquest.
The JFK Truth Project is advocating an inquest and has even set a date for one
to take place in WashingtonDC
in September, 2014, the anniversary of the release of the Warren Report.
Usually an inquest is held by an official coroner, who determines the cause of
death, and if found suspicious, criminal prosecution may follow, and
suspects are able to defend themselves there.

11)Other? Have
I missed any legal avenue that can be used? If so let’s hear about it.

The play “A Few Good Men,” was recently performed and has called renewed
attention to that still sensitive GuantanamoBay prison issue that just won’t go away.

As an arch typical military court room drama, the story focuses attention on
two attorneys defending two Gitmo Marines charged with second-degree murder in
a hazing incident gone wrong.

The 1992 film “A Few Good Men,”
directed by Rob Reiner and starring Tom Cruise, Demi Moore, Kevin Bacon and
Jack Nicholson, is a classic of its genre that spawned the JAG TV show, and
coined the phrase “You can’t handle the truth!” as a modern cliche.

However exciting Aaron Sorkin’s fictional film and the dramatic Shakespieriean
theatrical play may be, the real story of two Philadelphia guys at Guantanamo is even more incredible, the details of which stretch
imagination and their entanglements with the assassination of President
Kennedy.

While the U.S. military prison at Guantanamo is now infamous, it was hardly an afterthought in
anyone’s mind until after April, 1961, when the failed Bay of Pigs
invasion made the contract ional lease of the Guantamano naval base a point of
contention.

For William Szile and John Gordon it was a pivotal point in their respective
military careers, and for Szile, continues to haunt him up to and including
today.

Their stories sound pretty close to the fictional incident of the movie and
play, as Szile was in charge of the USMC prison at Guatanamo when he was
ordered to remove the body of a Cuban national, suspected of being a spy, who
died suspiciously on the base. It probably would have been an open and shut
case against Szile except for the fact that the other marine accused with him was
a Medal of Honor recipient.

Szile was a home grown Philadelphia boy who lived not far from John Gordon, a Harvard
educated navy officer assigned to the Pentagon.

Just after the disastrous Bay
of Pigs fiasco, ONI assigned John Gordon to Guantanamo where he was to direct the efforts of a Cuban
national in an attempt to assassinate Castro. He ended up in the Navy
psychiatric ward.

Among the records relapsed under the JFK Assassinations Records Act (of 1992)
is a Congressional committee report from Mason Cargill; Subject: JOHN GORDON,
which reads: "The following is Gordon’s story. A few days after the Bay of Pigs
invasion in 1961, Gordon was told he was being transferred from his job in the
Office of Chief of Naval Operations to the Navy base at Guantanamo as Base Intelligence Officer. He was briefed by
several agencies including the CIA before heading for Guantanamo."

"At one briefing by officers from a certain office within the Office of
Naval Intelligence (ONI), he was told that there was a Cuban national who lived
on our base at Guantanamo and was an employee of the Navy who was willing and
able to assassinate Fidel Castro. His name was Alonzo Gonzalez. One of the
officers who told him this was Lt. James Carr. Another’s name was Day, although
Gordon does not remember his first name or rank."

"Gordon arrived in Guantanamo about the first of June 1961. He began working with certain Cubans on the base
including Gonzalez in a program of guerilla activities within the surrounding
Cuban territory. The Cubans would surreptitiously leave the base to engage in
sabotage and espionage operations and then return to it. Gonzalez was one
leader within this Cuban group. Gonzalez during the month of June and during
the month of July spoke several times with Gordon about the possibility of
assassinating Castro. Gordon however, came to believe that Gonzalez was a
double agent. One reason for this was that a certain cache of weapons outside
the base of which Gonzalez had knowledge was discovered by Castro agents only an
hour or so after it was placed there. Another reason was that he discovered
that Gonzalez was teaching his servant how to fire small-arms."

"Sometime, in July 1961 Gordon discovered that dynamite had been brought
into the base surreptitiously. He suspected Gonzalez of doing this and
immediately telephoned the base commander to suggest that Gonzalez be arrested.
According to Gordon, less than one hour after his telephone call to the base
commander he himself was arrested by the Shore Patrol and placed in the
psychiatric ward of the base hospital. After several days at this hospital he
was transferred to CharlestonNavalHospital and then to PhiladelphiaNavalHospital, finally being discharged from the hospital in
October 1961. He said he was characterized as having a problem of situational
adjustment. After being discharged from the hospital, he was sent to the Fourth
Naval District Headquarters in New Orleans as an intelligence officer. He heard nothing of
Gonzalez until approximately 1966 when he saw something in the Philadelphia
newspaper that Gonzalez had been arrested by Castro within Cuba."

"In 1969, Gordon says he wrote to the new Secretary of the Navy requesting
an appointment to inform him of the Gonzalez episode. Shortly after writing
this letter, Gordon was confined to the BethesdaNavalHospital for an alleged psychiatric problem. After release
from this hospital Gordon retired from the Navy in 1969. Gordon admitted that
the only evidence of any CIA connection to Gonzalez, his activities, or the actions
on the part of Naval officials in hospitalizing Gordon was the fact that
officers in Washington who initially informed him of Gonzalez had
responsibility for liaison between ONI and the CIA."

"He also admitted that he had no evidence that any domestic CIA
activities were involved in this affair. We advised him that as a result this
matter did not appear to be within the jurisdiction of this Commission and
suggested that he might get in contact with the Senate Select Committee. About
one half hour after Gordon left our office, I received a call from Fritz
Schwartz of the Senate Committee Staff stating that Gordon had called him
requesting an appointment. I briefly described what Gordon had told us and said
that the Senate Committee Staff might want to interview him, although Gordon’s
story seemed a little incredible to us. Schwartz said they would probably talk
to him today."

Mary Ferrell, who maintained files on JFK assassination subjects, Comments:
"DOB: 8/19/21.
POB: Philadelphia (Upper
Darby), PA. Son of Irwin Leslie Gordon who was Naval
Intelligence. Gordon's first job was with Reading Railroad. His grandfather had
been an executive with Reading Railroad. Social Security Number 726-09-1554
(issued by railroads in lieu of social security numbers - called Railroad
Retirement Number). Attended William and Mary 1948-1953. Graduated from
Harvard. Joined Navy. Service Number 52-28-50. Married Edna Cox North
(granddaughter of Lord and Lady Beckwith), of Leeds, England, March 1954. Gordon was in Pine Beach, NJ, on Mill Creek Road, in 1964. In Morocco in 1956. At Pentagon in 1959 and lived on Dogwood Drive in Alexandria, VA. 1961 at Guantanamo Naval Base. Hospitalized during 1961. 1961 and 1962
at Naval Ship Yard in Philadelphia. 1963 - at Pentagon. 1964 - St. Petersburg, FL.
1965-1967 at 8th Naval District, New Orleans, LA, as Naval Intelligence
Officer. 1968-1976 at Framingham, Massachusetts. From 1976 until death at Georgetown, SC. He taught at CoastalCarolinaCollege, a subsidiary of University of South
Carolina.
Gordon died September 27, 1987...

Since Gordon approached the wrong committee with his information, it doesn't
appear anything was done, despite Gordon's attempt to seek redemption.

Szili, William A. – USMC.

Szili's story is even more bizarre, if that's possible.

Guantanamo prison, Cuba, spies, interrogations, torture, executions, death
and denials. Everywhere you go – television, radio, newspapers, internet,
Guantamano is the story that won’t go away, a message the meaning of which is still
being debated.

Bill Szili is tired of hearing about it, and it irks him that it seems we
haven’t learned anything from history.

On September
30, 1961, at the height of the Cold War, Bill Szili
USMC, was months away from retirement after a distinguished 12 years of service
when he was suddenly awaken at his Guantanamo, Cuba barracks. As the officer in charge of the base's
prison, Szili was being called upon to engage in an act above and beyond the
call of duty.

Szili’s company commander, Captain Arthur J. Jackson, shot and killed a Cuban
while escorting him off the base for being in a restricted area, an ammunition
dump. The Cuban, Ruben Lopez, a bus driver on the base, who commuted to his job
from nearby Guantanamo
City, Cuba, was said to be No. 16 on a list of Cuban spies
operating on the base. After being warned against visiting restricted areas,
Lopez was caught near the ammunition dump and personally escorted to the gate
by Capt. Arthur J. Jackson.

Jackson said that after being escorted from the base, Lopez
“lunged” at him, and was shot by Jackson - the impact of the blast sending Lopez over a cliff
to a rocky beach 25 feet below. The following day Jackson and Szili returned to
the scene of the shooting, with Jackson descending to the beach and covering the body. Two or
three days later, after numerous trips to check on the body, they decided it
should be buried. At this point, two other officers and three enlisted men
became embroiled in concealing the murder. One officer supplied nylon rope to
haul the body up the cliff face, another dug a shallow grave on the base side
of the fence, while the enlisted personnel helped with the moving of the
body.

Arthur J. Jackson wasn’t just another USMC Captain, he had earned the
Congressional Medal of Honor in combat during World War II, and was one of the
most highly regarded soldiers in the military service.

JACKSON, ARTHUR J.

Rank and organizations: Private
First Class, U.S. Marine Corps, 3rd Battalion, 7th Marines, 1st Marine
Division. Place and date: Island
of Peleliu in the Palau group, 18th September 1944. Entered service at: Oregon. Born: 18 October 1924, Cleveland, Ohio. Citation: For conspicuous gallantry and intrepidity
at the risk of his life above and beyond the call of duty while serving with
the 3rd Battalion, 7th Marines, 1st Marine Division, in action against enemy
Japanese forces on the Island of Peleliu in the Palau group, 18 September 1944.
Boldly taking the initiative when his platoon’s left flank advance was held up
by the fire of the Japanese troops concealed in strongly fortified positions,
Pfc. Jackson unhesitatingly proceeded forward of our lines and, courageously
defying the heavy barrages, charged a large pillbox housing approximately 35
enemy soldiers. Pouring his automatic fire into the opening of the fixed
installation to trap the occupying troops, he hurled white phosphorus grenades
and explosive charges brought up by a fellow marine, demolishing the pill box
and killing all of the enemy. Advancing alone under the continuous fire from
other hostile emplacements, he employed similar means to smash 2 smaller
positions in the immediate vicinity. Determined to crush the entire pocket of
resistance although harassed on all sides by the shattering blasts of Japanese
weapons and covered only by small rifle parties, he stored 1 gun position after
another, dealing death and destruction to the savagely fighting enemy in his
inexorable drive against he remaining defenses, and succeeded in wiping out a
total of 12 pillboxes and 50 Japanese soldiers. Stouthearted and indomitable
despite the terrific odds, Pfc. Jackson resolutely maintained control of the
platoon’s left flank movement throughout his valiant 1-man assault and, by his
cool decision and relentless fighting spirit during a critical situation,
contributed essentially to the complete annihilation of the enemy in the
southern sector of the island. His gallant initiative and heroic conduct in the
face of extreme peril reflect the highest credit upon Pfc. Jackson and the U.S.
Naval Service.

When the details of the incident concerning the violent death of a Cuban spy at
Guantanamo came to light, Jackson resigned from the Marines Corp and two other officers
(Pruitt and Steiner), along with the enlisted men, were forced out. Szili was
ousted under a law which "permitted the revocation of the commission of an
officer with less than three years active service on the active
list."

Before leaving the service however, both Jackson and Szili had been held under
guard in the psychiatric ward of the base hospital and likewise later at Camp
Lejeune, NC, and were required to sign statements verifying they understood
that if they ever spoke about the incident, they could face fines of up to
$10,000 and 10 years imprisonment under the Espionage and Sabotage Act.

In the end, none appeared before a military or civil court (the shooting having
occurred outside the base) and all left with honorable discharges, with Szili
being the only one to eventually speak out.

Jackson became a mailman in San Jose, California. On May 1st, 1963, the White House announced 324 Medal of Honor winners
would attend Kennedy's annual military reception the following day. On April
30, Jackson sent a telegram to the President declining the
invitation on the grounds that his presence "might possibly be an
embarrassment." This was a reversal of a previous acceptance made before
the Gitmo story broke. Salinger, on behalf of Kennedy, replied through a press
conference that "We respect his decision. Capt Jackson and his wife will
always be welcome at the White House." Jackson never surfaced publicly again.

Szili returned home to Philadelphia, where he contacted his Congressman, Senator Richard
Schweiker, in an attempt get reinstated in the Marines. Schweiker, a Republican
Senator, called for hearings on the matter, but after a secret briefing in
April, 1963 involving military officers, Navy Secretary, Fred Korth, Marine Commandant
General, David Shoupe, and the Chairman of the Congressional Armed Services
Committee, the hearings were cancelled.

Szili was working for Fidelity Mutual Life Insurance Company at the time the
story broke in the media (Apr/May '63). According to newspaper accounts, Szili
left the Marines in March, 1962.

In a telephone interview with Bill Kelly [10pm – Friday, August 25, 2006] William “Bill” Szili said he was a former Marine
stationed at Guantanamo. "Yea, I was the brig warden. I was the brig
warden there before I got commissioned. I ran the prison."

Does he see the irony today? "Yes I do (Laugh). Oh, yea. My first tour of
duty at Guantanamo I was a staff sergeant and Castro was still in the
mountains and Batista was in power. And then I went and got my commission and
went back later."

Concerning Schweiker's cancelation of the scheduled committee hearing on his
case, Szile said, "I don’t know. Schweiker was just an opportunist. Hell
no, he didn't help at all. All he did was to take over the Armed Services
Committee when he became a Senator. He just made sure he got in
print."

"I got an honorable discharge, but, yea, I didn’t want to leave. All they
wanted to do was to hide this thing. And that’s exactly what they
did."

Having kept it under wraps all this time, I asked Szili if he was still upset
about it, to which he responded, "Well, the Commandant at the time was
David Shoup and he said, “Time heals all wounds,” and he’s full of shit
too." (Laugh)

What about Fred Korth, the Secretary of the Navy?

"Nobody went to bat for us. I have no idea what happened to anybody. I was
held incommunicado for quite awhile. Everybody kind of disappeared. After I
left the corps, I...I tried to...keep the family together, you know, took jobs
here and there, and finally got into country club management."

There at Guantanamo in the heat of the Cold War, suddenly his story is
actually relevant, "We never learn. We haven’t fought a war to win since
World War II." And Szile says that he has no problem talking about it
today. "Anything that gives someone a kick in the ass, I’m all for
it."

Now can you handle that?

[Thanks to Greg Parker and Robert Howard for research assistance on this story]

MrHalley. I became
involved with the Cuban affair in approximately February of 1962. At that time,
I was in Headquarters. I was Chief of Foreign Intelligence Activities for the
Eastern European Division. I was asked to be released from those duties to
conduct a survey of the opportunities for running intelligence operations
against Cuba. I
was released from those duties; I did engage in a survey of the possibilities
for running intelligence, counterintelligence, paramilitary operations against Cuba.”

(document page 4 – MF page 9)

I jointed the Agency originally in 1951. When I was first assigned to the Agency I was an Army
officer on active duty. I went through the usual Agency training program. I was
assigned to Eastern European activities where I originally was focused on
Polish and German operations. I subsequently served from 1952 to 1959 in Germany….

[Did not travel to Cuba,
except possibly in transit. ]

When I first entered into this (Cuban) survey, it was to do
this on a TDY basis, temporary duty
assignment, to complete a report on my findings, to report those at that
particular juncture to Mr. Harvey who was the head of the Task Force that was
attempting to expand intelligence coverage of Cuba and I was not assigned to
the station at that particular point in time.

[Joined JMWAVE shortly after completion of survey, before
the end of May 1962]

Dp9 – p.14 MF

….matters pertaining to that survey to the team who was then
in charge of operational activity in Miami.
That team was essentially headed by Mr. Al Cox, who has since died.

Mr. Cox was the head, then, of what would be the equivalent
of the JMWAVE station.

He was the head of that unit until such a time as I replaced
him.

My understanding at the time that I conducted this survey
was that there was a three-man group in existence which was headed by Mr.
Robert Kennedy that was conducting a survey to see what kinds of activities
could be conducted against Cuba.
The other members of that particular group were General Lansdale and Mr. Helms.

[Not familiar with MONGOOSE or aware of it or that acronym,
cryptonym ]

As the Task Force commander, he (Harvey) was reporting to
the then DDP who was Mr. Helms.

[Shortly after Helms replaced Mr. Bissell]

p. 16 MF

On one occasion I accompanied Mr. McCone to the White House
to give a presentation or sit in while the presentation was being made…This was
a meeting with President Kennedy and other members of the then-Cabinet were
present at that particular meeting.

[That was in 1962. Not sure if it was meeting of Cabinet, NSC
or Special Group]

Mr. McNamara, Mr. Rusk, Mr. Kennedy, the Attorney General
was present

DCI was present and gave
a portion of the presentation….As I recall Mr. FitzGerald gave the other
portion of the presentation.

Doc p. 13 MF p. 18

You know, the chronology of the Chiefs of our Task Force
were that it was Harvey, then FitzGerald, then Scraber, after that, Hart. I
served with all four of those.

This was a general review of activities that were being
conducted against Cuba.

[No mention of assassination]

I am aware of the term Special Group. I am aware that the
chronology of the 303 Committee, Special Group, 40 Committee and so forth….

MF p. 19

When I entered into this project in February of ’62, the
chain of command that I was familiar with was this three-man group in constant
contact with Mr. Harvey. The second chain of command, paralleling that, was Mr.
Harvey reporting to the DDP and the DDP subsequently reporting through his
chain of command to the Director, and that would be the only way that I could
characterize that with any accuracy.

MF p20

I know that shortly thereafter I was in Miami,
General Lansdale came down to visit me, to talk with me, about the progress
that was being made in the operational program. At some point after that, this
three-man group for all intents and purposes disappeared. General Lansdale was
reassigned, the group broke up; subsequent review of the program were made at
the Special Group level. As an example, we would have to submit every month the
number of operations that were going to run, such as infiltrations into Cuba
through what would be paramilitary means, and these were approved by the
Special Group. There was an approval procedure for setting those up, so
subsequently the three-man group disappeared and the regular mechanism of the
Special Group came into play.

In other words, if we were going to run an operation that
was gong to be a cache replacement in the Cuban mainland, that had to be put
in, say in our October schedule, that October schedule had to be submitted to
the Washington headquarters so
they could make it available to the Special Group sometime in September. So I
would regard a cache, say the lowest kind of operation in terms of sensitivity,
and then you could move up from team infiltrations that had to be approved in
advance, resupply missions, paramilitary operations against fixed installations
would all be approved.

[Involved in Cuban operations from Feb ’62 – June or July of
‘65]

If it was something that certainly would – for some reason
might not be committed to paper, somebody may have wanted to discuss it orally
from Miami, the chain of command would have been from me to whoever was the
head of the Task Force in Washington, or later, when the Task Force became
reintegrated into the Western Hemisphere Division, I would have had to talk to
the Chief of the Western Hemisphere Division, who at one time was FitzGerald.

[Talk to Mr. Harvey or Mr. Screbar ]

MF p23

[No knowledge of any assassination plots run out of Miami
]

You have to put yourself in the historical context of that
particular time. Thousands of refugees were coming out of Cuba,
coming into Miami, DadeCounty and up and down the Florida
Keys.

There was a regular mechanism to screen these people. Any
number of these people had plans or ideas for changing the situation in Cuba,
among those ideas for changing the situation in Cuba
were plans to assassinate any number of people in Cuba.
This was something that was talked about, you could go down to any coffee house
in downtown Miami and Cubans would
be talking that kind of language. So I do not want to leave you with the
impression that the word assassination never came across my radar screen, but
we are talking about, and my answer was geared to a planned operation by the CIA.

CIA involvement? I know
of no operation that was a planned operational activity, you know, for the sole
purpose of assassinating, you know, Mr. A, B or Mr. C. This was the x xxx
allente of the time. People were talking about these things in the refugee
community, these kind of things were being discussed.

This was the mood of the Latin American revolutionary where
a coup, you know, is a way of life, where restaurants and coffee houses abound
with conversation about how to run a coup. In the running of a coup, one of the
things that people talk about is how do you control the leadership which then
exists at that time.

During my tenure in Miami,
I did not put forth any proposals to mount an assassination operation. In other
words, there was no formal plan. I did not put forth any operational proposals
along this line.

Secondly, I am not aware of any assassination plans being put forth, you know,
by Mr. Harvey or by anyone else at that particular time. That is the way I
would prefer to answer that.

…I did not put forth any plans. On the other hand, I do not
want to be held responsible for such things as CIA
being held in touch with a paramilitary group in Cuba whose primary mission was
the collection of intelligence, whose secondary mission might be to organize a
resistance and, unbeknownst to me, might have had their own idea which were
never consulted with us, you know, never discussed with us, through the
communications channels that we had, who may have been thinking, may have
planned, and may have attempted, to implement assassination operations.

I do not feel under the command and control mechanisms that
existed that I could exercise through the station over such a situation that I
could be held responsible for that. Therefore, I cannot accept your question on
the secondary or tertiary situation because I have no knowledge of those. You
may have some knowledge and you can confront me with some statement by some
Cuban who said that this was part of his mission. I have to look at that at the
time.

And I will stand by my answer, that is, I put forth no
plans, I know of no plans put forth, you know, during my tenure in Miami
in which assassination was part of the operational rationale. You know, the
only way we can clarify this perhaps to your satisfaction is to discuss some
specifics. If you are prepared to talk about specifics, maybe I can deal with
those within the framework of that general statement that I made, you know. I
know how Cubans talk. I know the rumors that have existed over the years. I
simply do not want to be identified with any action conducted by some group
over which I had no knowledge or control. That is my key point.

My requirements for reporting really stemmed in the early
days from Harvey. If there were any
special requirements, he was taking them from the three-man group and
translating them and, in fact, much of the system of reporting in those early
days was generated by me and what I thought was required to keep Mr. Harvey as
a Task Force Commander fully informed. I think that you undoubtedly know from
the record that I worked for Mr. Harvey prior to 1962 and therefore I was
familiar, you know, with his style of operations and though I had a clear
understanding of what he needed in an informational sense. So when I went to Miami,
I organized much of the reporting flow upward, if you will, from the field unit
to Headquarters.

No, I do not deserve any credit for the tunnel operation.
That is Mr. Harvey’s activity. He kept that very tightly compartmented and in
the days when that was going on, I was involved primarily with Eastern European
activities.

Yes, I would like to say I am a personal friend of Mr.
Harvey.

I want to make a point. Insofar as the three-man group was
concerned, I would see Helms in his role as the DDP in the three-man group. I
would see Lansdale - - as I told you, Lansdale
came down to visit me in Miami on
one occasion. He came as part of that three-man group. But my chain of command
during my visit was still from me to Harvey.
Lansdale was down there, I was to be, you know,
straightforward, candid, discuss plans, programs, problems. But I received my
orders and instructions, the control of money and so forth was vested in Task
Force Commander, Mr. Harvey.

Therefore, I have never dealt with this three-man group as a
body. I dealt with the individuals, you know, and various mutations.

I would have to say that the total reporting became more
formalized the longer we stayed in business. I cannot ascribe this to the
difference of style of the three-man group as opposed to the Agency chain of
command or subsequent with the requirements of the Special Group. This evolved
from a body of experience that was gained as the operation was established and
got some experience.

So I would not want to characterize that as being a result
of the groups.

I had no reason to believe that it was not a duly
constituted body. In other words, these officers that I reported to in that
particular case, Mr. Harvey, Mr. Helms, were my chain of command at that
particular point, were the ones who briefed me on the existence of this
three-man body and I felt that was a perfectly legitimate function of that body.

My recollection of the initial briefing was from Mr. Harvey.

[p. 34. MF Did not meet personally, one on one with the
Attorney General RFK. The briefing at the White House was only time he met with
RFK. ]

Throughout that whole period of time, that was the only, if
you will, direct contact with him that I can remember. You know, unless you can
show me something.

[Bruce Cheaver….at metting]

Again, I put it in this overall context of the times. We
were running Foreign-Intelligence collection operations against Cuba
with Classical agent means. We were running collection against Cuba
through paramilitary teams. We were involved in paramilitary operations that
could be described as commando raids. Those were the kinds of activities. We
were dealing with exile groups, we were debriefing refugees and in all of this
conversations of assassination, the Cuban penchant for it had to come up. I
cannot pinpoint…

Even such things as discussions of various types of weapons,
you know, people, as you probably know from this experience, every individual
who deals with weapons has a different view on what is the ideal weapon. If you
took a squad of ten men and gave them the free choices, I’m sure all ten of
them would come up with a different weapon.

Therefore, when we were standardizing weapons to our
paramilitary teams, things like that, weapons would be discussed in terms of,
you know, muzzle velocity, rate-of-fire, weight of the weapon for the Cuban to
carry, because many of them were quite small. In this context, people would
discuss what is the range, can a guy use it to shoot somebody at a particular
range? Is this an assassination weapon? Is this a good weapon for close combat?

Therefore the term assassination was just part of the life,
of the fabric at that time. That is what I am trying to get across. I just
cannot articulate any more eloquently than that.

If you are planning a commando raid against something like
an oil refinery, you have to think about how are you going to get across the
guard force that is around the refinery? One of the questions you have, of
course, is if you bypass them, you are successful to get in without a trail or
any kind of struggle, that is great. But what happens if you are implanting
your target and the guard stumbles on you, you know, the guard forces then
becomes an immediate risk to your operation and usually there is a fire fight.
Therefore, this becomes a question of weapons. In other words, what weapon is
going to give the highest muzzle velocity and make the largest amount of noise?
Therefore, if you have two weapons of co-equal cyclic rate of fire and one made
less rate of noise than the other for that job you would pick the weapon with
the lowest noise. You might even silence it. You may make a silenced submachine
gun out of it.

These are the kinds of things that go into these discussions
of weapons.

In this particular context, I think most people felt that
the Cuban penchant for assassination, for discussing assassination, was the
kind that would have to be done from a long range. You know, I think that it is
generally an accepted thesis that a group of dedicated men who are prepared to
give their lives can in time assassinate almost anybody. Now, the Cuban was not
that kind of person. That was not his psychology make-up. He tends to want to
live to enjoy life, to talk about his accomplishment. Therefore, while they
were brave and dedicated, they were the kind of people who would probably
engage in something like this in the context of using the sniper weapon as a
vehicle for assassination, long distance.

Therefore, in this context you are talking about range, you
know, one of the key factors becomes what is the accurate range of a weapon if
fired by an expert marksman. Therefore, that is the kind of thing that would go
into, you know, discussions of weapons.

The perspective really starts with the failure of the Bay of
Pigs Operation. After the failure of the Bay of Pigs,
the Kennedy Administration wanted another look taken at the problem of Cuba.
In order to get that other look started, the Kennedy Administration created
this three-man task force or this three-man group and wanted to see what else
could be done against Cuba,
and that is when I came into this problem, in February of ’62.

This three-man group stemmed out of that [Robert
Kennedy-Maxwell Taylor Board of Inquiry into Bay of Pigs]
inquiry. What its relationship was to the inquiry, I do not know, because I was
not involved and I never had an opportunity once I plunged into this job, to go
back and read those historical documents. You know, I am sure there is a
Maxwell Taylor Report and so forth, but I have never read it.

Therefore, my first task when I became involved in this was
the task of coming up with an operational plan to see what kinds of intelligence
could be collected in Cuba, so that by collecting this intelligence, an
assessment could be made based on hard facts as to what could be done against
Cuba. In other words, the difference here was that people thought that the Bay
of Pigs operation was not soundly grounded in intelligence.
Therefore, this was an attempt to start the collection of intelligence to see
what could be done.

In order to collect intelligence at that particular time, it
was believed that all avenues of approach should be used, so that meant
classical foreign intelligence operations, counterintelligence operations, the
debriefing of refugees, and the use of paramilitary means to put teams into
Cuba to collect intelligence on that part of the island that could not be
covered by what you would call the classical means of foreign intelligence
collection.

As the program was started essentially by me or accelerated
by me, was in fact got caught up with the Cuban Missile Crisis – that is, the
advent of the Soviet intervention into Cuba – and our whole effort shifted to
covering that Soviet build-up in Cuba, and this was an integral part of our
having detected the Soviet build-up and the Untied States government taking the
actions which they did, that is, to verify this.

There was a great problem for a while we were all taking
about hard intelligence, the President, John Kennedy, was telling us, give us
hard intelligence. We thought we were giving him hard intelligence. What we
meant, in his definition of hard intelligence, as it turned out to be, was a
U-2 photograph. He never articulated that to us in those terms.

Then we got caught up into the eyeball to eyeball
confrontation of the Cuban Missile Crisis. When that was over, we got caught up
with the problem of monitoring the disengagement of the Soviet presence in Cuba.
That took us up through sometime into early ’63.

Then we took a look again, because we knew an awful lot more
about hem than we had when we started in February of ’62, to see what could be
done against Cuba, and it was clear at that point that no external invasion was
going to be possible, because that was something that was excluded by the
Khruschev-Kennedy agreement and then it was not feasible. In any event,
therefore it was a question of what could be done. So we were collecting
intelligence to continue to stay on top of the situation. We were attempting to
establish contact with the military establishment in Cuba to see if there was
any force that was opposed to Castro within the military establishment that would
be used to alter the situation and continue to see whether there were any
economic pressures that could be brought on Cuba that would accelerate the
whole problem of creating an environment in which a resistance could be created
on an island.

In addition, we were continuing to support certain elements
of resistance, you know, that were still there that were not in the Army.

There were paramilitary forces that were in Cuba, that we
had put in or established contact with, or people who were already in the bush
who we had already established contact with or they had established contact
with us, and we were providing them with food, weapons and so forth so that
they could survive. So that it was a multifaceted approach at that particular
time.

That went on from the middle of ’63 until the middle of ’65,
and these are two distinct phases of this operation.

[Structure of JMWAVE]

The Station started expanding in whatever timeframe it was,
somewhere after the survey was completed. It must have started expanding
sometime in March of 1962. You know, by the time that it was at its peak, which
was probably somewhere just before the Cuban Missile Crisis, July, August of
1962, it was either the largest or second largest – my recollection was it was
the second largest station in existence at that time.

There would be for instance, maritime case officers. We
hired people who had specialized skills, that is, that they could manage a
series of vessels for us, but they were not longtime staff employees. Thee would
be people who would be used, if you will, in a management organization, basic
implementation of the program.

When I talk about the Station, as such, I would say that is
roughly in the neighborhood of [REDACTED] people, and that was those people who
would be involved in the management effort, the direction effort, the financial
logistics, cover procedures, security, that kind of thing. All right? Flowing
out from that were people whom we would call agents, that is, people who were
not knowledgeable necessarily of whom they worked for or where the cover
officers were located and so forth. Let us say, in the maritime parts of the
operation we might have had at any one point in time, you know, up to five
hundred people involved in maritime activities, you know?

….These would be essentially Cubans who were the captains of
the vessels that were used in infiltration operations to put people on the shore
of Cuba, and there were a variety
of techniques. In other words, you might start with the mother ship, which
would be an LCI – I am not sure how familiar you are with various kinds of
vessels.

[An LCI is a] Landing craft kind of vessel, or patrol craft,
a PC, 110-foot vessel that would be a mother ship. This is the kind of ship
that would take fuel supplies and water, so that other smaller vessels could be
serviced by it. So you might start an operation of a mother ship towing a
smaller boat, or having it on its decks and going down to fifteen or twenty
miles from Cuba, putting the smaller boat over the side, which was a faster
boat, lower silhouette, less likely to be picked up by a Cuban coastal radar,
and then that would take the team in close to the shore where we might finally
put them in rubber rafts, where they would paddle in or use a silent outboard motor
if the surf was high.

…In other words, I am only using this as an example. Let us
say we had the ABC Shipping Company. That shipping company was a subsidiary of
the Station, if you sill, and the ABC Shipping Company ran maybe one LCI and
maybe two or three smaller boats which it could deck load and that company
might have fifty or seventy-five employees, as an example, all Cubans, maybe
some of them were Nicaraguan or Costa Rican…We are talking about all of these
companies, they probably went up into the hundreds….

There was a Chief of Station, which was myself. I had a
Deputy Chief of Station for operations. That is the gentleman who is now
retired. I think he is still alive, by the name of Moore, Robert Moore. I had a
second Deputy Chief of Station and he was for Support Patterns. That is a
gentleman who is also retired, a Mr. Corris.

Then the rest of the Station was organized into a number of
branches. Each branch was organized along functional lines….There was a Foreign
Intelligence Branch. These were people in, what in my terminology would be
classical foreign intelligence operations. That is, trying to recruit a Cuban
diplomat abroad, as an example, dealing with, you know, a Uruguayan diplomat in
the Uruguayan Embassy in Havana.
They are working with resident agents in Cuba who might live in some city like
Havana and have a legaljob as a baker
or butcher or something but had a radio set in which they could communicate
with us, through which they could communicate with us.

Then there was the Paramilitary Branch. This was the group
that ran the command o operations. This was the group that ran, and put people
back in Cuba,
into resistance groups, or established contact with resistance groups. This was
a group that also worked in putting in caches that would supply people, either
paramilitary forces in Cuba
or agents that were being run by the Foreign Intelligence Group.

All right. Then there was a Covert Action, people who dealt
with exiled refugee groups that were involved in radio activities, publications,
that kind of thing. Then there is a whole panoply of – then there was Maritime,
in terms of finance, and so on. Security was a branch. Obviously, under that
kind of system, no executive, whether he is president of a corporation or a
Chief of Station, can see every single piece of paper that comes in or out, but
clearly there was a review procedure whereby program reviews were conducted,
individual operational reviews were conducted.

….During this period of time there were a lot of independent
Cuban groups who claimed that they had sponsorship from the Agency but did not,
and were operating, and there was a period of time when these groups could not
run their operations from Florida without running the risk of being picked up
by Customs, Immigration, Coast Guard, the FBI, or if we had information on it,
you know, we might pass the information to the Coast Guard so that they could
keep them from going…..somebody like Alpha 66 or Commando L or somebody like
that, they were not part of the CIA apparatus.

Washington, Task Force W, essentially did not run any
paramilitary operations where they took command and control fro sending people
to Cuba. For
instance, if Task Force W in Washington
wanted to plant a radio in Cuba
which was to be picked up by foreign intelligence agents who could report, they
would task us to implant that radio in a cache in a particular area in Cuba,
for instance, Oriente province. We would know simply that it was a radio
perhaps. We would put it into Oriente province, write up the site, give them
the rip cord. They would communicate to the agents in Cuba
who would go recover the cache.

I had no contact with the Artime group, as a general rule.
They[Task Force W] also had contact
with Manolo Ray which I did not have contact with….

You know, the Agency had a highly compartmented mechanism.
You know, let us dispel one thing very promptly here. If you are asking me was
I aware of all these contacts, you know, with the Mafia – and I think I can
tell you frankly at that time I was not - Harvey would come to Miami to visit
me to review the activities of the station, and while there would go off on his
own and make his contact with whomever he was meeting. I knew he was meeting
somebody, but it was not up to me to find out with whom he was meeting or why
he was meeting them or what he was doing with them.

…In this business you just do not ask your superior, what
are you doing? That is just not cricket; that is not the way the game is
played.

….I had the impression from Harvey
going off that he was meeting with somebody, and at one point in time I came to
the impression that he was meeting a guy by the name of John. Who John was, I
had no idea. We were involved in an attempt to try to find two Soviets at one
point who were of interest. The fellow who provided the lead to that had been a
member of one of the casinos in Cuba
at some time.

I do not remember the man’s name. It may come to me…..

[ Called back for a second session, a seven page transcript,
the name of this person is REDACTED but is probably John Martino.]

[Miami station
had no direct relationship with Tony Verona]

My recollection of this AMLASH case is as follows. At some
point in time, I had a conversation with Desmond FitzGerald in Washington
during one of my periodic visits to Washington
from Miami. We discussed at that
meeting the nature of our approach to the military establishment in Cuba.
In the context of this conversation, Mr. FitzGerald asked me if I thought
whether it would be a good idea for him to meet one of these Cuban military
personalities, and he subsequently identified to me the personality he was
talking about was AMLASH-1.

My advice to him was that it would probably not be a good
idea for him to meet him, and the only thing that I could see coming out of
that king of contact would be that he, Mr. FitzGerald, would get a personal
feel for what makes some of these people tick, in human terms, and that that
probably was too high a price to pay for the prospect if anything went wrong,
an individual as prominent in Washington as, both within the Agency and the
social world of Washington, would be exposed in the Press. That would create a
flap that I thought was not worth what would be gained from that meeting.

This gentleman, being AMLASH-1, was met in Spain.
I also recall after having left the Cuban activity that I read a Press article
showing that he had been apprehended and I remember reading the publicity of
that particular activity. It is also my recollection that we put in a cache for
him.

…I was later Chief of the WH Division from 1972 to 1973, and
I did read some of the files….

…FitzGerald and his staff wee working on what I was doing in
Miami to try to establish contacts
with the Cuban military. In other words, we saw this as a multi-faceted
approach. First, we wanted penetration of the Cuban military so that we could
collect intelligence. What were their strengths, weaknesses, what was their
mood, where were things going? Secondly, we wanted from these sources
operational intelligence. Who – in other words, who in these groups were
dissatisfied as Fidel consolidated. Who could provide leadership for a
counter-movement against Fidel?

We were looking for people, once we had identified them, to
see if we could establish contacts with any of those leaders so we could see
whether there was a basis for working toward an overthrow of the Castro
government. You know, those were the basic steps.

Now as you got down to talking about how you overthrow
Castro, obviously the question comes in of how does a group who wants to run a
coup or take power take power, and obviously one of the things that has to be
looked at is where does the existing leadership going to be during this event,
who has control of the various units? So our discussions were all in that
context.

[There are fourteen folders in the AMLASH file]

MF p. 103

For most of those commando teams, you were looking for a
different kind of weapon. You are looking for a weapon with a high range of
fire power over a short distance to deal with an emergency situation rather
than the kind of, you know, weapon that we are talking about. In other words,
you would find that type of group armed with a submachine gun, as for example.

…Most of the missions that were run were run against targets
that were in fairly close proximity to the shore. If you are going to put a
party to attack your objective, let us say this objective was a petroleum
storage tank, if you were going to do this by putting charges up against the
petroleum storage tank that meant that you had to have a group infiltrate close
enough to put the charge on the tank. Some distance away from them you would
give them a second element of the commando team which would be providing
covering fire for this group in case they got into trouble and cannot handle it
on the ground. This covering fire group might have had a light machine gun, a
Belgian weapon. They could have these kinds of weapons and they did have these
kinds of weapons which in the definition you are using could be used as a sniper
weapon or whatever, but the basic reason for having that weapon was to provide
fire support for the other members of the commando team.

[Rolando Martinez “More than once he was given personal
charge of weapons drops in which special rifles with silencers and telescopic
sights were left at designated inland spots.”“I took a lot of weapons to Cuba,
some of them were very special weapons for special purposes. They were powerful
rifles with sophisticated scopes, Springfields with bolt action, rifles only
used by snipers.They were not sent to
shoot pigeons or kill rabbits. Everyone in the Underground was plotting to kill
Castro and the CIA was helping the
Underground. I was with the Underground as well as the CIA,
so you can see I was involved in the plots too, but that is also obvious.” ]

[Mr. Murray, who was in the Havana Station, Arthur Avignon
who was head of the Havana Station for awhile -]

MF p. 117

There was an office of ONI, Office of Naval Intelligence
representative on Guantanamo….

AMOT. That was a program involving a
Cuban émigré group that was used as an operational support mechanism to support
the Miami Station. They were interviewers of refugees who came out of Cuba.
They provided translator personnel to translate the Spanish language
publications that were of interest to us. They provided information on the
various mainstream activities that were going on in the Cuban exile community.

[Lansdale
arrived in Summer of ’62 in special plane that landed at Homestead AFB]